


Red Penance You Can't Be Forgiven

by Fallen_Skys



Category: Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga), ソードアート・オンライン - 川原礫 | Sword Art Online - Kawahara Reki
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Altered Mental States, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Anxiety Disorder, Blood and Injury, Cutting, Dissociation, Don't Like Don't Read, Graphic Description, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Kyouji has memory problems from mentalbreakdown, Kyouji is supposed to sound off his rocker, Medical Inaccuracies, Memory Loss, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mental Institutions, Not Beta Read, Panic Attacks, References to Depression, Self-Destruction, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Self-Worth Issues, Sorry Not Sorry, Suicidal Thoughts, The doctor taking care of Kyouji isn't necessarily doing the best job, also from getting hit on the head, hence why Kirito and XeXeeD hatred is not referenced really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:00:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26488324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallen_Skys/pseuds/Fallen_Skys
Summary: **TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR SUICIDAL THOUGHTS, SELF-HARM, DEPRESSION, PANIC ATTACKS, etc. Read tags for more insight**Shortly after getting taken away by police Kyouji is temporarily held in juvie until he is to be relocated to a rehabilitation center for his assistance in 2 murders that he and his brother planned out. Whist staying there the only thoughts on his mind are how he can make up to Shino Asada the girl he loves and how he can repent for what he did, in the most self destructive way possible. With the his body on the other end of a sharped plastic knife. This is his own brief self-destructive journey in his head as he gets lost in what he's doing and his loss of self-love.
Relationships: Asada Shino | Sinon & Shinkawa Kyouji | Spiegel, Shinkawa Shouichi | Xaxa | Sterben & Shinkawa Kyouji | Spiegel
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	Red Penance You Can't Be Forgiven

**Author's Note:**

> So this goes with my other work Only You Understand Me (https://archiveofourown.org/works/10746027/chapters/23823177) It can be read alone or with that fic. Which I am starting up again. I'm trying to write chapter 1 as I upload this so I'm trying here. It's been hard lately. Anyway... Read this as you would like. I just think Kyouji needed to be explored more as a troubled teenager who has mental health problems but that's just me. I am taking this seriously though. And in no way am trying to romanticize this. If anyone is struggling with depression anxiety, bipolar disorder etc. please go see a doctor. If you feel like you are not loved, that is not true, the biggest person who you can fall back on to love you is yourself. And if that doesn't work there are people out there who care about you even when your mind tells you otherwise. Please if you ever think of harming yourself, please pick up the phone and try and call someone. Hurting yourself is not the way to help yourself in any way. If you can't afford to go to a psychologist, a psychiatrist or a therapist, please reach out to others I can't stress this enough. If you ever have doubt if it annoys them don't be afraid to ask them, and even if you are afraid, ask them anyway. You are friends, you should be able to lean on and comfort each other. Any I'll put more on what I want to say about this fic in the end notes. Jsut please drink plenty of water. Stay safe. And remember you are loved.

He deserved it.

It was his punishment.

It was his penance.

He wasn’t allowed to face her without doing this.

He wasn’t allowed to speak to her without doing this.

He wasn’t allowed to be her friend without doing this.

That was his mantra every time Kyouji he saw the uncut flesh of his arms and legs. He hadn’t been caught yet. This facility wasn’t as careful as they thought they were. A juvie that used plastic cutlery instead of metal really wasn’t thinking. It was all to easy for someone to steal a plastic knife and sharpen it in his room without anyone noticing. He could stab a guard, a roommate, someone during lunch, even himself.

But it wasn’t meant to stab.

No.

He meant for it to slice.

Slice up his pale smooth arms, turning the canvas from creamy white to rusted red.

Just one at a time.

That’s all he needed.

His hands sweated nervously as he bit down on his shirt.

His too large sleeves rolled up to his shoulders.

And before he could notice the pain, he noticed the bright red that bloomed from wound on his bicep. The sting only coming moments later when the air hit the cut, cooling against his body. Wincing, tears welling up in his eyes, his fingers trembling against the plastic weapon as his body begging him to stop as he repeated the motion. Over, and over again until he was sore, only to start over again. Switching hands with the white stained plastic now splashed in varying colors of red, brown, and black as his blood dried. He didn’t care as he continued to draw back and forth the colorful lines across this bare canvas he called his skin. It was only when the shakiness of his hand overcame him when he actually stopped. And when he did all he could do was sit and stare at the mess he made at half amusement and half disbelief.

He felt pain.

He felt real pain.

He felt real.

But then he didn’t feel real.

It felt fake.

It felt artificial.

It felt too fixed.

Too put together.

Too simple.

Too underserving.

Too pitiful.

Too…

Too...

Too stupid.

Something so stupid that wasn’t good enough for him to have penance for if he was feeling euphoria for it.

Something so stupid if he was a mess of guilt after committing such acts afterward without thinking how to cover them up.

Something this stupid was just to show how right everyone was about him.

He was an idiot, a moron, too stupid to be a doctor, too hopeless to get good grades without sacrificing everything else for the sake of studying.

He couldn’t do anything correctly anymore, or maybe he never could from the very beginning.

If only he and Shouichi were one being.

Shuichi had the brain and he had the good health.

Then they’d both be useful.

But it didn’t work like that, nothing could fix Shouichi’s body and nothing could fix his mind.

He was Kyouji Shinkawa, ultimate fuck up son, who couldn’t even get a passing score in an advanced class if he tried.

But he had tried.

He tried over and over.

And over.

And over and over again.

And again.

Nothing seemed to ever work out for him no matter how hard he tried. And even now the cycle continues. He will never be able to earn Shino’s forgiveness. He will never get Asada to like him. He didn’t deserve it. He could never deserve it. She would find other people who could be friends with her. Other people who would be better for her. Other people who wouldn’t be weak.

Like he was.

He couldn’t help her.

He couldn’t protect her.

He couldn’t be her prince or knight.

She wouldn’t want him as a partner.

She wouldn’t want him as a significant other.

A friend.

An acquaintance.

He’d be nothing to her.

Nothing.

Maybe a memory if he was lucky.

Maybe.

His only friend.

His only one.

Even by the time someone noticed his shivering form, the pale skin of his now splatter in stains that had long turned brown from their original red vibrancy. His hoarse laughs and croaks from his parched throat did him no favors when he was questioned by the guards and staff on what he could’ve possibly been thinking. Everything around him seemed to twist and turn in a sense of delirium, off of a high from the pain, or something else entirely he didn’t know. But when asked questions in the medical bay everything seemed to get hazy. His mind feeling like a fog was over it and an excruciating migraine that he hasn’t felt for days seemed to sink its fangs deep into his brain. Squeezing his head harder and harder and harder with each wrapping of gauze, and each question the doctor asked him.

“What is your name?”

“ _I uhh Kyouji… Spiegel… Both? I’m not sure….”_

“How old are you?”

_“16”_

“What is today’s date?”

_“I’m… not sure… I think it’s still December of 2025 but I don’t know the day…”_

“Do you know where you are?”

 _“A medical bay…_ ”

“Where you are specifically. Do you know what this building is?”

_“The SBC Glocken Jail? Maybe? Err no that’s not it umm…”_

“Do you…”

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Kyouji just stared at man in front of him, his voice distorted beyond repair in his head, the tightening of the headache continuing even more so that before. Like a snake coiling around him just about to choke him. His breath feeling quick and heavy, his eyes unfocused darted around the room, and his body shaking even more than he was before. Was it more euphoria, was it fear, or something entirely different? He wasn’t sure, nor would he be able to ask. Because everything went dark quickly, and when he awoke he was strapped down on some gurney being transported to where he’d be staying next apparently.

“You’re to be staying a mental health rehabilitation facility. I would have thought someone at that place would have told you, but seeing as what those quacks were doing when you were in the middle of a dissociative episode it doesn’t surprise me you didn’t stay there more than a few days.” The police officer riding with them shook his head seeming to have read through the entire file already but gave Kyouji a look strangely not of disdain but… pity.

The rest of the ride was quiet. Not even Kyouji would make conversation. He didn’t like initiating it when it came to those older than him. He had enough ridicule to last him a lifetime every time he tried to make a good impression. And being in these circumstances, that was out the window. So any interaction just felt even more unnecessary. There was no need to try and impress someone who wasn’t there. By the time they made it to the facility it was already past mid-morning of yet another day he didn’t know the date of, or what day of the week it happened to fall upon.

“Try to get better okay kid.” Were the last words of officer as he waved Kyouji off, where Kyouji responded in kind with a blank expression, as the older man went to sign off transfer papers he assumed.

So he was now from one prison into the next. Stuck into a different hell. One where they wouldn’t be so ignorant to his ideas. They would try and stop him every time he’d try and punish himself. Even as he lay back on the gurney waiting for another person to fill out more papers for yet another thing or other, he couldn’t even seem to care anymore. Mundane things others did just seemed so boring, so insignificant.

So useless.

So pathetic.

So meaningless.

So unimportant.

So impractical.

He was no better.

He was worse.

He was far more worthless than even their mundane tasks.

It was painful.

It was pitiful.

It was hopeless.

It was despair.

It was….

It means…

Should he….?

He didn’t know…

Maybe ….

Part of him wanted to logout of life for good.

**Author's Note:**

> Again not trying to romanticize mental illness, I struggle with Generalized Anxiety Disorder which falls into depression if I ever get into bad enough anxiety attacks. I have ADHD and I have a hearing disorder that is basically on the same level as auditory dyslexia called Central Auditory Processing Disorder. So yeah.... mental health I can relate to some stuff on. I can't relate to self-harm (well to the extent that is like actually severe. looking back I guess some of my ticks were borderline self harm) or suicidal thoughts however because I am terrified of dying. But I imagine if Kyouji already had a murder suicide plan that means he probably already had thoughts of suicide before. These wouldn't be new thoughts to him. Cyclical thought processes during anxiety or panic attacks and memory loss after trauma (he literally got hit on the head by a stereo by Kirito) and the fact he basically had a mental breakdown (I had one and I couldn't remember like 4 months of what happened/ an entire school semester) he probably wouldn't have Kirito and XeeXed on his forefront of his mind as people as much. I feel like Kyouji being bullied was probably not just at school but at cram school too, Shino/Sinon was probably his only friend and he wanted to monopolize her because he had no one else to talk to beside his brother Shouichi, his parents were probably pressuring him so much that he just cracked under all of it and became obsessive and lost touch with everything. Like did he want to be himself or did he want to be his alter ego in game where he felt "stronger". Unlike his older brother who I legitimately think is too far gone, Kyouji I think was just venting out frustration until Shouichi brought up the idea of actually killing people and convincing him it was a good idea. Kyouji idolized his smart older brother who survived a death game, and Kyouji's already frail mental state was easy to manipulate into the ideals that Shouichi loved. And in some weird twisted form of affection Shouichi was just trying to help his brother out by murdering these people for real instead of it being a hypothetical for Kyouji to vent his frustrations and anger out on. I think Kyouji was on the verge of a mental breakdown for such a long time that he just hid it well until he really started spiraling on the night of BoB. Which is still kind of the reason why I think he is more of a victim of circumstance and probably why Sinon still wants to be friends with him. Because the person she knew wasn't someone who'd just want to go up and kill people like it was a game. But this is all my headcanon so.... yeah


End file.
